1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephone system comprising a first stationary part called the base station, for emitting/receiving signals and adapted to be coupled to a telephone line, and at least one part accommodated in a mobile housing, called the mobile station, which mobile station includes audio signal processing means and means for communicating with the base station by radio.
The invention also relates to a special peripheral device for a telephone system of the type defined above.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cordless telephone sets have been known for several years. Owing to the radio link between the mobile handset and the base station in the user's home these sets provide a high flexibility because they permit incoming or outgoing calls to be made in a range of some tens of meters around the base station.
Apart from the greater freedom in making telephone calls, this new type of product from now on also enables other technical problems, which may occur under special conditions of use of the telephone, to be solved at low cost, which is the aim of the present invention.
One of these special conditions of use is the wish to make telephone calls or to be ready to receive a call while watching television and listening to it. The operations to be carried out in such a case is to turn down the volume of sound of the television set and to access the telephone set. The invention proposes to solve this general technical problem with the least possible inconvenience, it being assumed that the user has a multi-channel cordless telephone.
From the Japanese Patent 6-14370 (A) a cordless telephone is known by means of which the above-mentioned problem can be solved. For this purpose, one of the mobile handsets also comprises an infrared remote control device for a television receiver.
The present invention proposes an additional advance in order to solve the afore-mentioned technical problem.